Memory Aids

The Catholic plots — "RTBB 1571-1586": Use this sequence to remember the four major plots:

• Ridolfi Plot — 1571 (Duke of Norfolk involved; first major plot)
• Throckmorton Plot — 1583 (Francis Throckmorton as Mary's agent)
• Babington Plot — 1586 (beer barrel letters; condemned Mary)
• Mary executed — 1587 → Armada launched — 1588

The sequence matters: each plot became more serious; each one made it harder for Elizabeth to avoid executing Mary; and the Armada came immediately after the execution as Philip II's retaliation.

Walsingham's beer barrel trick (1586): Walsingham inserted a double agent — a brewer named Gilbert Gifford — into Mary's household. Mary's coded letters were smuggled in and out of her prison (Chartley Castle) inside a waterproof pouch hidden in a beer barrel bung. Walsingham's codebreaker Thomas Phelippes decoded every letter. When Babington wrote to Mary seeking approval for the plot to kill Elizabeth, Mary wrote back giving her approval. Walsingham had the evidence he needed. The date: 1586. The result: Babington executed 1586, Mary executed February 1587.

The Armada date — 1588: Use "Drake was Eighty-Eight minus fifty" — Drake was born c.1540 and was about 48 when the Armada came. Or more simply: Queen Elizabeth's reign was 1558-1603; 1588 is exactly thirty years in (1558 + 30 = 1588). The Armada came at the midpoint of her reign's last thirty years.

Key individuals — BCEW:

• Burghley (Cecil) — chief minister, cautious administrator
• Campion — Jesuit priest, executed 1581, Catholic martyr
• Essex — favourite who rebelled 1601; executed
• Walsingham — spymaster who broke the Babington Plot